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Most of CERN's data isn't on hard drives anyway - it's got the biggest tape system in Europe that I know of (I do high end storage for a living).

A photo, for funsies: http://www.flickr.com/photos/naezmi/3309812634/

C

There is no ball in the "optical trackball". Just a tiny static piece of plastic where "trackball" used to be. It's hard to see what it is on a picture but stop by any mobile phone store and check out one of the later models from HTC and Blackberry.

Say goodbye to turntable strobe lights

Those people get to choose whether or not they put pictures on the internet. They do not get to choose whether google puts pictures of them on the internet.

So you're saying that this guy got the permission of the ~400 people in this photo?:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wesbs/5273648283/

There are lots of geotagged or labelled images on the web now, and the trend is clearly upward. Lots of people over-shard on Facebook, and yes that includes people who might take your photo and not ask you before uploading it. Google may have good coverage, but open photo sites are easier to scrape and make no attempt to blur faces. Facebook has just-enough-to-be-reasonable controls, but now it's actively scanning for faces.

Say what you want about "righteous standards of behavior", but the horse left the barn a long time ago.

I've been doing this for a few years, with one camera taking many views, since I first found out about the research they were doing at Stanford. Here are some scenes around Chicago which are composites of many photos to generate a synthetic focus. The idea is to capture the scene from many slightly different points of view, and to capture all of the parallax information, which then yields depth.

I haven't be able to make it happen, but it should be possible to combine N pictures to get a bit less than N times the normal resolution. If you had 100 photos that were 8 megapixels each, you should be able to composite them into a 100 megapixel image with the right alignment and extrapolation algorithms.

Python 2.x comprises an awesome language series. A real shame about python 3's incompatabilities, but we still have python 2.x, so it's far from a total loss. And perhaps ol' Guido will wise up and turn back to maintaining a properly compatible upward development course with the 2.x series. One can hope.

Huge fan of Python, myself. This is my python code for instance... it's an aurora detection and prediction system that sends me an SMS whenever I need to get out there with my camera. And as you can see, it works for me. Uses PyEphem and PIL, otherwise comprised of my code, my meter and web scraping libraries, etc.

See, what you've just admitted is simply that you failed to even try to solve the problem. Like most things in programming, it's amenable to effort, and there are significant rewards.

First thing I do on a new project is incorporate my development memory code; I get pools, cached pre-allocators, null pointer checking prior to every use, prior to deallocation, and on allocation; memory consumption tracking both in amount and allocate/deallocate counters, reference counting, over- and under-run barriers, named, unfreed capture and unfreed re-allocation trapping, barriered arrays and exposed (defeatable) array accessors, and a good deal more. This adds about 50k to the target executable during development.

Then, when it's release time, I simply switch to the release version, which recompiles into lean, mean memory handling, about 3k, knowing that any problems -- which, frankly, after decades of doing this, are few -- have already been caught. Exposed accessors and so forth are still there, no overruns happening, etc. So I don't spend time "doing memory management"; No null pointers, no buffer overruns, no issues at all, and no particular work to make it all happen. Code once, enjoy the many, many benefits thereafter. Completely under control. And that goes for a lot of other things you might consider "c issues", too -- over the years, you (well, I) learn to solve problems in a way that moves forward with you. These are *tiny* chunks of code, not these massive frameworks from Waste-O-Rama, Inc.

In the end, I produce a faster, leaner, more efficient app that saves the user time with every action; is much easier to maintain (either fix or upgrade) because it doesn't depend on external libraries and frameworks I don't have control over; saves download time simply because it's much smaller than a comparable C++ etc. application; doesn't unethically trade the user's application space for any perceived development effort savings, and is known to have a very high degree of correctness on its way out the door. If someone finds a problem, I can fix it in minutes, because there are no black boxes. Users like that, too... email in, fix comes back in half an hour. Kind of sets them on their heels, for some reason... guess they're used to something else, eh?

I even get to use all manner of OO techniques - objects with built in functions, allocators, class functions, object functions, etc., but the difference is, I have complete control over them; I'm not at the mercy of the compiler, framework, or otherwise private libraries, because they're built using my own code and methods. I'm not tied to any particular GUI generator (that's a real issue in Apple's OSX), and I don't have to worry about dragging little lines around to connect my objects -- that's all done "in your face", in code -- no hidden black box nonsense. My buddy back on the east coast spent many hours last week trying to incorporate Apple's treeview control... I have a pile of email from him complaining about the built-in bugs... I just LOL'd and showed him my treeview library. Bugfree and more functional than Apple's, anyway. Nothing beats having your own code. Other People's Code is almost always an invitation to trouble, and that is especially true if it is some major company's, because they simply are not going to be responsive to your needs.

And as to race conditions... I write real time, multi-threaded signal processing code. I invented some of the current AFSK modes. My latest project is a multicore aware, user-core-utilization selectable image processing suite -- in beta now (see it on the middle two monitors?) -- that makes Aperture look like a box of slow, clumsy crayons, but is a fraction of its size and offers *far* more in terms of functionality, even incorporates an astrophoto processing system. About 99% c, the rest is an obj-c application wrapper. I think I might know a little bit about how not to trample my own toes in this regard.

No

Small, automatic "ovens" (form following their purpose, in the spirit of Roomba; also, a story about a toaster) are out there. Inexpensive, low maintenance. Formally for bread or jams (and cake?), I believe, but a cookie is basically just a larger pastry divided into pieces. Or, at the least, many robots good at mixing stuff.

The thing from TFS... looks like visions of household robots from the 50s/60s scifi (kinda like this; I've seen one actually built by "futurist" of the times, good probably only for posing to a photoshot with a normal vacuum cleaner); which were mostly a manifestation of cargo cult scifi fans pushing collective imagination on very limited path. Sad, really; Roombas or automatic mini-bakeries were probably possible much earlier than they showed up.

Yeah, go ahead and form your "union". You will quickly find out just how replaceable you are.

"United we bargain, divided we beg," is a favourite slogan of unions (I believe it may be attributed to Australia's ACTU, the union peak body) and it's become a bit of a cliche because it's 100% true. A non-unionised workforce is paid less than a unionised one for the same work and productivity.

I'm what most /. readers would call an Apple Fanboi but it sits uneasy on my left wing conscience to buy products from a company which doesn't value the contribution of labor equal to the contribution of capital. There would be no cool products (Apple or otherwise) without the skills of the workforce, yet without shareholders opposed to unionised labour, others who support unionised labour are willing to invest.

So, yes, we're all replaceable, capital or worker. The issue is when capital will give up this idea that, because they bring the money, they are lord over all. Unions are not collectives of uppity slaves, they are a coming together of the skillsets which make an equal contribution to productivity to that brought by money. No capital, no project, but no labour, still no project.

Tada!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17685394@N04/1847030233/

That's a lot of toilets...

Except for steel railings, the shippers do everything you have mentioned. The reason for no railing is that the containers themselves are the structure and they are stacked far above the hull of the ship.

Here is the tie down that goes between the containers http://www.tandemloc.com/0_securing/S_AD54000A.asp

Here is a picture of the lashing used http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueship/137784714/

Yeah, go ahead and form your "union". You will quickly find out just how replaceable you are.

More to the point, California is a right to work state. It's a waste of his time.

Yeah, go ahead and form your "union". You will quickly find out just how replaceable you are.

Yes, but we all know how much a pain getting a replacement for an Apple product is: apple battery support

Yeah, go ahead and form your "union". You will quickly find out just how replaceable you are.

He's just following Apple's lead - if you can't even replace batteries, certainly you can't replace employees.

Yeah, go ahead and form your "union". You will quickly find out just how replaceable you are.

(And it's Paolo, not Paulo; he's Italian, not Portuguese...)

Ever hear of business class? It really doesn't cost that much more and it is well worth it.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2352/2431564897_7f1b508c3e.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbeebe/5728483570/

You mean like this: A Dalek in a fez and a bow tie. :D

Yes, the Internet has EVERYTHING.

Your turn: Rule-34 this! ;)

While I agree that coal is, in general, safer than nuclear, I'm not sure about...

would be save to visit the next day, and green, and lush, and inhabitable, in a matter of years.

The number of years to erode one of these holes would be a lifetime, I think, Flickr of Ekibastuz, chosen at random from Google images.

Is this kind of like Silly Putty but the pictures glow in the dark?

Uh... I already do this.

Searches for "IBM PC-RT turbo button" on Google are already turning up this thread.

Answer: Google is lurking on /.

Also, if the RT has no turbo button, what's it doing with a speed indicator?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31231773@N02/4468867321/in/set-72157623718669848

Documentaries about Area 51 love to focus on those signs as if they are unique, but they are not. Those signs are pretty ubiquitous on Air Force bases around restricted areas, such as the flight line or a sensitive building. An example is this one from Langley AFB (not my photo). They are also posted on the fences around a base.

If you ever visit an Air Force base for an air show, look around the entry control points, they are sure to have that sign nearby.

Deadly force authorized does not mean shoot on sight, you are more likely to be detained or escorted away. It is unlikely you would be shot, even there, unless you were threatening or attempted to do something stupid like a high speed run onto the property.

I have a system; a laptop and a desktop box, keyboard and mouse is shared via Synergy as well as a headless server for storage and services.

Actually, similar here; there are three servers, all headless -- I just SSH into them from my desktop and otherwise monitor them via various CGI/web services I've set up. Works great. I used to use a KVM switcher for the main web server and its backup, but after a few years of really not needing it at all, I finally pulled it out. If those machines ever have a sever problem, I may have to wire them back up, but barring hardware failure, it isn't likely.

The 6 monitors thing sounds cool. How do you have it arranged?

Here's a photo taken from the best angle I could manage; there's not much space behind me where I could shoot straight on.

Apple tried to avoid it by using symbols wherever they could. But as someone else pointed out, that gives new problems, for example in Spanish, where "+" means "sum" not "add".

Exactly!

See, the problem you run into is that "Add Alarm" and "Wekker toevoegen" are going to take up different amounts of space. Thus, you may have to redesign your interface for different languages. At least in the Apple realm, this is relatively easy to do (localized nib files). So the buttons may not appear in the same places or there may be other interface issues that have to be solved. But they are solvable.

Conversely, putting in a bunch of pictures makes the developer's life easier by basically saying, "I'm going to come up with a brand new language that you're going to have to learn if you want to use my software." Then he/she sits there and scratches their head and says, "Gee, I can't understand why these stupid people can't use my software!" or "Gosh, why do people in the Netherlands buy my competitor's software instead of mine?"

Take a look at the Control Panel in this picture of the original Macintosh desktop. Notice how there's no text. Notice how you have almost no idea what half the controls do. Now look at the same set of controls for System 6.0.8. Which one do you think is easier to understand?

But, yes, this meant that Apple had to hire people to localize the text. On the other hand, that created a better experience for people using the system. If your goal is to keep expenses down and you don't care about usability, then by all means--use obtuse symbols and expect your users to figure it out. If you want software that people might actually want to buy, spend the time, effort, and money to localize it.

Interesting point and I'd like to read that professor's work, but I don't believe online services are flourishing for security reasons, but rather that it's coincidental from the average user's perspective. The whole point of this story is that people are not aware and knowledgeable enough about technology and security, so I doubt they factor it in highly enough to use it in their decision to chose an online service.

Security is rarely mentioned in the list of features of these services: nothing in Flickr, Picasa, or DropBox other than to discuss how files you upload can be shared selectively rather than be public. DropBox doesn't turn up anything when you query for "virus" in the help section (and even suggests disabling your anti-virus to solve a connectivity problem). Even Google Docs which has drawn much concern on data security neglects to reassure you that documents you upload are properly safeguarded, and doesn't guarantee that downloading an MS-Office version of a document is devoid of malicious code which may have been uploaded by whoever shared it with you. There's far more concern assuring you that they perform backups and that your data won't be lost. Twitter mentions security only in the context of safeguarding your account from hijacking. Facebook's "privacy" aspects are obviously not worth mentioning and where they mention it it's due to bad publicity, not a way of attracting users away from MySpace by being a safer platform. It has taken major Twitter/EC2/PSN outages for people to even realize there's a risk in relying on online services, which still isn't being discussed in these feature sets- public understanding of availability is as meager as security.

There's certainly a risk and possibly even this hidden cost you're suggesting in using proprietary online services, but I don't see that they are being used to avoid downloading an executable file, or otherwise provide any such protection against browser-based attacks. To the contrary- all of the above popular services except for Google Docs actually encourage or even require (DropBox) users to download binaries (in the case of Facebook/Twitter mobile apps), and Facebook users are clicking random links to the same kinds of nonsense they had been getting in their email.

Agreed; this is a proper cup of coffee.

In fact, there's a reason why in Europe the Americano is a diluted expresso cup.

What fig leaf? http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2407/2275553503_b82d6e4a22_m.jpg

Again, it's all about reporting back on the user's experience and perception - nothing to do with upgrade. In this light, I find it extremely odd that they would even attempt to file suit for violation of this patent.

Windows error reporting, anyone. Of course everything like this is obvious to someone trained in the art, unless you are a bunch of East Texas hicks on a jury.

Every election at state level and above, I have basically three choices: vote Democrat, vote Republican, vote for somebody who's really not going to be elected so my vote doesn't matter.

Indeed.

You can't even take pictures of planes near airports anymore in the US without getting arrested.

    I'm actually *very* surprised that I haven't had a few words said to me when I've been stuck in airports. I'll go around shooting pictures of whatever interests me. I like aircraft, so I end up with an awful lot of pictures of random aircraft. I've been considering uploading them all to airliners.com, but ... well ... I'm too lazy. :) I still haven't figured out who these belong to. Lots of white, no airline markings. I was told they're possibly embassy flights.

I'm still surprised the flight crews don't go ape-shit when people take snapshots through airplane windows during flights.

    They will tweak out if you have a camera in your hand, even if it's a SLR, when electronics are suppose to be off. To film takeoff and landing, you have to wait for them to sit down and buckle in. The way I see it, if there's a crash, at least there's a chance they'll find the recording and get a better picture of what happened.

    I got some half-way decent video transiting over New York City. It was dumb luck. I spotted a city, thought about how long we were in the air and said "Hmmmm, that's probably New York". We were high enough, nothing was distinguishable, but with the zoom all the way in I could see the Statue of Liberty. :) I never manage to get aircraft passing above or below us though. By the time I notice them, they're going the other way too fast to get a camera up.

    I do manage to get the occasional good shot like this sunset over a city, or this sunset at high altitude.

    Those are all fine, but shoot something like this, and you'll get all kinds of nice men with guns and badges (DHS and local sheriffs department) asking lots of questions, even though you were standing on public property taking them. They way I see it, if I can see this sign, and I'm still on the paved part of a public road, I'm not doing anything wrong. I guess I should mention, we were just out taking pictures for some stock photography. We didn't find anything interesting, and I decided it was best not to start shooting pictures of the officers.

You can't even take pictures of planes near airports anymore in the US without getting arrested.

    I'm actually *very* surprised that I haven't had a few words said to me when I've been stuck in airports. I'll go around shooting pictures of whatever interests me. I like aircraft, so I end up with an awful lot of pictures of random aircraft. I've been considering uploading them all to airliners.com, but ... well ... I'm too lazy. :) I still haven't figured out who these belong to. Lots of white, no airline markings. I was told they're possibly embassy flights.

I'm still surprised the flight crews don't go ape-shit when people take snapshots through airplane windows during flights.

    They will tweak out if you have a camera in your hand, even if it's a SLR, when electronics are suppose to be off. To film takeoff and landing, you have to wait for them to sit down and buckle in. The way I see it, if there's a crash, at least there's a chance they'll find the recording and get a better picture of what happened.

    I got some half-way decent video transiting over New York City. It was dumb luck. I spotted a city, thought about how long we were in the air and said "Hmmmm, that's probably New York". We were high enough, nothing was distinguishable, but with the zoom all the way in I could see the Statue of Liberty. :) I never manage to get aircraft passing above or below us though. By the time I notice them, they're going the other way too fast to get a camera up.

    I do manage to get the occasional good shot like this sunset over a city, or this sunset at high altitude.

    Those are all fine, but shoot something like this, and you'll get all kinds of nice men with guns and badges (DHS and local sheriffs department) asking lots of questions, even though you were standing on public property taking them. They way I see it, if I can see this sign, and I'm still on the paved part of a public road, I'm not doing anything wrong. I guess I should mention, we were just out taking pictures for some stock photography. We didn't find anything interesting, and I decided it was best not to start shooting pictures of the officers.

You can't even take pictures of planes near airports anymore in the US without getting arrested.

    I'm actually *very* surprised that I haven't had a few words said to me when I've been stuck in airports. I'll go around shooting pictures of whatever interests me. I like aircraft, so I end up with an awful lot of pictures of random aircraft. I've been considering uploading them all to airliners.com, but ... well ... I'm too lazy. :) I still haven't figured out who these belong to. Lots of white, no airline markings. I was told they're possibly embassy flights.

I'm still surprised the flight crews don't go ape-shit when people take snapshots through airplane windows during flights.

    They will tweak out if you have a camera in your hand, even if it's a SLR, when electronics are suppose to be off. To film takeoff and landing, you have to wait for them to sit down and buckle in. The way I see it, if there's a crash, at least there's a chance they'll find the recording and get a better picture of what happened.

    I got some half-way decent video transiting over New York City. It was dumb luck. I spotted a city, thought about how long we were in the air and said "Hmmmm, that's probably New York". We were high enough, nothing was distinguishable, but with the zoom all the way in I could see the Statue of Liberty. :) I never manage to get aircraft passing above or below us though. By the time I notice them, they're going the other way too fast to get a camera up.

    I do manage to get the occasional good shot like this sunset over a city, or this sunset at high altitude.

    Those are all fine, but shoot something like this, and you'll get all kinds of nice men with guns and badges (DHS and local sheriffs department) asking lots of questions, even though you were standing on public property taking them. They way I see it, if I can see this sign, and I'm still on the paved part of a public road, I'm not doing anything wrong. I guess I should mention, we were just out taking pictures for some stock photography. We didn't find anything interesting, and I decided it was best not to start shooting pictures of the officers.

You can't even take pictures of planes near airports anymore in the US without getting arrested.

    I'm actually *very* surprised that I haven't had a few words said to me when I've been stuck in airports. I'll go around shooting pictures of whatever interests me. I like aircraft, so I end up with an awful lot of pictures of random aircraft. I've been considering uploading them all to airliners.com, but ... well ... I'm too lazy. :) I still haven't figured out who these belong to. Lots of white, no airline markings. I was told they're possibly embassy flights.

I'm still surprised the flight crews don't go ape-shit when people take snapshots through airplane windows during flights.

    They will tweak out if you have a camera in your hand, even if it's a SLR, when electronics are suppose to be off. To film takeoff and landing, you have to wait for them to sit down and buckle in. The way I see it, if there's a crash, at least there's a chance they'll find the recording and get a better picture of what happened.

    I got some half-way decent video transiting over New York City. It was dumb luck. I spotted a city, thought about how long we were in the air and said "Hmmmm, that's probably New York". We were high enough, nothing was distinguishable, but with the zoom all the way in I could see the Statue of Liberty. :) I never manage to get aircraft passing above or below us though. By the time I notice them, they're going the other way too fast to get a camera up.

    I do manage to get the occasional good shot like this sunset over a city, or this sunset at high altitude.

    Those are all fine, but shoot something like this, and you'll get all kinds of nice men with guns and badges (DHS and local sheriffs department) asking lots of questions, even though you were standing on public property taking them. They way I see it, if I can see this sign, and I'm still on the paved part of a public road, I'm not doing anything wrong. I guess I should mention, we were just out taking pictures for some stock photography. We didn't find anything interesting, and I decided it was best not to start shooting pictures of the officers.

Ten words you need to stop misspelling

Pointless corrections set off alarms.

Interesting picture, thanks for the link. Many cities in less-developed parts of the world (including in Thailand/SE Asia in general which is what I'm personally familiar with) look almost like that today. And in most of those places, in the cities anyway you can get unrestricted, fast broadband for a fraction of what our crappy service in the US costs. Do we want our cities to look like that? No, but hey, it works...

Over time, as in NYC those places will move this kind of infrastructure behind walls and underground. In the mean time, they've got better connectivity than us, and chances are when they move underground everything will be upgraded to the latest and greatest. In that same time, I foresee the situation in the US only getting worse.

Here are three photos I took in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand, illustrating my point. In Bangkok they've even got a special crew with special poles designed to lift up low-lying power lines for when things with high clearance need to pass underneath (you can see this in the third photo).

Interesting picture, thanks for the link. Many cities in less-developed parts of the world (including in Thailand/SE Asia in general which is what I'm personally familiar with) look almost like that today. And in most of those places, in the cities anyway you can get unrestricted, fast broadband for a fraction of what our crappy service in the US costs. Do we want our cities to look like that? No, but hey, it works...

Over time, as in NYC those places will move this kind of infrastructure behind walls and underground. In the mean time, they've got better connectivity than us, and chances are when they move underground everything will be upgraded to the latest and greatest. In that same time, I foresee the situation in the US only getting worse.

Here are three photos I took in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand, illustrating my point. In Bangkok they've even got a special crew with special poles designed to lift up low-lying power lines for when things with high clearance need to pass underneath (you can see this in the third photo).

Interesting picture, thanks for the link. Many cities in less-developed parts of the world (including in Thailand/SE Asia in general which is what I'm personally familiar with) look almost like that today. And in most of those places, in the cities anyway you can get unrestricted, fast broadband for a fraction of what our crappy service in the US costs. Do we want our cities to look like that? No, but hey, it works...

Over time, as in NYC those places will move this kind of infrastructure behind walls and underground. In the mean time, they've got better connectivity than us, and chances are when they move underground everything will be upgraded to the latest and greatest. In that same time, I foresee the situation in the US only getting worse.

Here are three photos I took in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand, illustrating my point. In Bangkok they've even got a special crew with special poles designed to lift up low-lying power lines for when things with high clearance need to pass underneath (you can see this in the third photo).

Maybe in Sendai alone.

This is about a thousand containers:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcnbits/2859509269/

Doesn't look like much from that angle.

A pizza place burned down near my house a couple years ago. This was a 2 story building and the fire only lasted a couple of hours or so before the building was essentially lost. I wish I took a picture of the steel, because it was sagging profusely for the 2nd story's roofing support. How can a fire at a pizza place melt steel enough to cause steel to sag but fire from jet fuel can't? http://www.flickr.com/photos/progman/2576958712/ Put tens more floors on top of that steel and see how long THAT structure lasts. This whole theory is complete bullshit, shame on anyone who believes it. I may be biased because my family lost someone in one of the planes, but like south park said "you're retarded if you think it was a conspiracy".

> Wrists off table is BAD. It's that simple.

Absolute rubbish. Typical ergonomic advice is to keep your wrists at a natural angle, whereas keeping your wrists on the table forces the hand to be bent somewhat backward. Something like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/onekell/2570138754/

There's debate about whether wrist pads that support the wrist are a good or a bad thing.

To get some accurate information, see this FAQ: http://www.rsiprevention.com/rsi_faq.php

It's not just posture in any case - total hours worked per day, taking breaks away from the keyboard, and stress management are also very important.

I tell people it's like going back to Cat3 on a 10/100 hub. Or, if they're not technical, it's like having one teacher for 30 students versus 1 tutor for every child.

It's also important to remember that wireless is a brand new technology. We act like it isn't, but really it is. 802.11 was ratified in 1997. The technology is only 14 years old. For reference, this is what a cell phone looked like in 1997. Cell technology was about 20 years older then. Remember how bad cell phones were in the 90's? That's where wireless LAN is today.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3354/3195959986_5d945ffcbe.jpg

The measure would negatively affect consumers who have come to expect rich content and free services through the Internet,

Personally it freaks me out whenever I go on a random site and it shows me my own facebook profile picture along with a message such as "Be the first of your friends to recommend this article!!"

I'm still caving to peer pressure and keeping a FB profile, but I resent it always more and more. One thing is for sure - that's one company I'm not investing in any time soon.

I've got a simple solution -- Simply change all the facebook like button icons to this image -- Feel free to use it on your sites (yes it's creepy, no it's not goatse). The alt text should read something like: "You can hide, but you can't run!"

Is it this one? Or maybe this one?

The same can be asked about media piracy! You might as well just say it: you're all equating MP3 downloads to terrorism or treason.

I thought it was obvious to everyone that downloading mp3s is treason. After all, when you pirate mp3s, you're downloading communism.

I wonder how long that paint job on the underside of the wings will last? Will the desert sand-blast it away? Or will it be burned on first re-entry?

You've quoted the Reuters article, but not the Sony statement.

The PlayStation blog and Sony's statement to The US House of Representatives can be found via the following links:

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/04/sonys-response-to-the-u-s-house-of-representatives/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblog/sets/72157626521862165/

Both make clear reference to the file placed on the server which bears the hallmarks of Anonymous, but neither statement "officially blames Anonymous" for the PSN hack.

Well, the amount of spin and FUD being outputted here makes that understandable. You can read the full response here http://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblog/sets/72157626521862165/ While they mention finding a file on their servers that references Anonymous and noting that the intrusion takes place around the same time. They letter enver blames Anonymous. What I find worse is the mob mentality that has gone along with this circus show. 1. People are assuming that Anonymous is a formal group and has one particular set of behavior. 2. People are assuming that "everyone" that took up the Anonymous title, are altruistic and/or have a very limited set of skills. This behavior reminds me of basic conformation bias. It is sort of how people in the US are quick to point out violent/negative behaviors done by certain people who identify themselves as muslim to paint the entire islam community despite any denouncements yet when violence/negative behaviors of that nature are done by people who claim they are christians are relatively ignored or brushed over stateside (like the murder of Dr. Tiller). No I am not a guy who "hates" any of the big three companies. I am an avid gamer who reads these sites all the time, and I can't help but notice the amount of BS people love to have aimed against sony. Sony is in the wrong for going after someone who exposed proprietary keys? Sony is at fault for being a victim of data theft? You seriously believe that keeping abreast of all activity on a network while defending against a DDoS attack is easy? Is there such thing as an unhackable network? For such a tech saavy site with supposedly mature tech minded people, the vast majority of these upmodded comments are seeming ownright immature and ill informed.